Community Risk

Community risks were determined via statistical regression models that predict various types of risk as
a function of community attributes. Five community risks were modeled separately for low- medium-
and high-hazard structures. The community risks were:

number of reported structure fires,

percentage of reported fires that spread beyond the room of origin,

percentage of reported fires that spread beyond the room of origin and spread beyond the structure of
origin,

number of reported injuries resulting from structure fires,

and number of reported deaths resulting from structure fires.

Community risks were estimated for each of three different classes of structures in a community including
low, medium, and high hazard structures as categorized by the NFPA.

Community risks were also estimated as a function of the socio-demographic and geographic
characteristics of the locations (census tracts) of reported structure fires over a seven year period
(2007-2013) according to available NFIRS data. The socio-demographic attributes include:

Population characteristics (e.g., size category of the department, population, number of males,
age group counts, race counts)

Housing characteristics (e.g., total housing units, total vacancies, size of home, number of renters,
age of units)

The final set of variables varied by model, and were selected to ensure the best prediction of risk.
Note that because deaths are rare, many departments will be predicted to have only a fractional number
of deaths.

Community risks are not currently estimated for communities with populations less than 10,000 people
because small departments are expected to behave different from larger departments. The model is under
continued development to ensure all communities are captured in FireCAREs. The number of departments
for which estimates are generated are listed below.

Table 1: Number of departments by size and region.

Department Size

Population

Region

Label

From:

To:

West

South

Northeast

Midwest

Total

size_0

0

2,499

size_1

2,500

4,999

size_2

5,000

9,999

size_3

10,000

24,999

99

270

136

325

830

size_4

25,000

49,999

100

172

92

195

559

size_5

50,000

99,999

118

88

53

121

380

size_6

100,000

249,999

76

36

17

88

217

size_7

250,000

499,999

25

11

3

22

61

size_8

500,000

999,999

13

5

1

18

37

size_9

1,000,000

up

5

1

3

5

14

Total

436

583

305

774

2,098

About FireCARES

Analyze how fire department resources are deployed to match a community's risks.